St. Landry democrat., 1887-02-12

looked at her. Inns was MI. boldwood, q
( gentleman farmer, who was described as a
| hopeless man for a woman; had been courtel
| by skies and sevens, all to no purpose He
was bachelor of five and thirty, rich and
handsome, but not at all susceptible. Bath
sheba sat opposite him at church, met him in
market, rode by him on the highway, without
so much as winning from him an admirine
glance. She felt injured.
While in this state Of mind she brought
home a valentine from the village one even
| ing. 1t was a gorgeous, embossed affair,
guiltiess in appearance of its power as a fac
tor in the lives Of the persons whose hands it
was to pass through and into An innocent
enough piece of stationer's art if seemed to be.
Bathsheba had purchased it for little Teddy
Coggan, but as she was about to address it to
him, Liddy, her irrepressble serving maid,
suggested that it would be great fun t. send
it to the stupid old Boldwood:" thai he'd
worry to DEATH" and so, with a yawn On her
handsome face, Bathsheba assented, and
wrote upon its formidable envelope Farmer
BcldwoOds name and sealed it with large
red SEAL bearing the mandatory motto.
"Marry ne" She did not know that it was
to be powerful factor in the destiny of her
handsome, reserved neighbor. She could not
see that the red wax sealed his fate, so vcry
idly and unrefiectingly was this deed done.
AT dusk on the evening of st. Valentines
day Boldwood sat down to supper, as usual
by beaming fire of aged logs. Upon the
mantel shelf before him was a time piece,
surmounted by a spread eagle, and upon the
eagles wings was the letter Bathsheba had
sent. Here the bachelors gaze was continu-
ally fastening itself, till the large red seal
became as blot of blood on the retina of his
eye; and as he ate and drank he still read in
fancy the words thereon, although they were
too remote for his sight: Marry me-" There
in the calm Of his home, under the color of
his grave mind. the pert injunction, Marry
me, took on deep solemnty. He could not
get it out OF his mind--not even when he
slept-and the next days dawn saw a new
and restless Mr.. Boldwood in place of the
calm, Indifferent one. He, who knew nothing
of jokes, gave to the foolish valentine a sig
niticance of deepest import. His imagination
began to play upon the sender. Who was
she. The motto of the seal, the insistent red
seal, was ever blazing in his mind. Marry
me" Marry me,n He heard and saw moth
ing else, and dimly behind it rose wonan's
form, now near, now far, now faint and hay
and then fairly luminous, but never decided
enough to settle the question of her identity.
Before many days he proved by compari-
son that the writing on his valentine was
Bathsheba Everdenes. The next Saturday he
looked at her for the first time in market.
He saw her black hair, her correct facial
curves and profile, and the roundness of her
chin and throat He saw then the side of her
eyelidS. eyes and lashes and the shape of her |
ear Next he noticed her figure, her skirt,
and the very soles of her shoes. He thought
her beautiful, and wondered in frightened |
way how this romance in the flesh had es-
capped the possession of man. He saw her |
aiding up accounts with dashing, young |
farmer, and grew feverish with incipient |
jealousy; he trcd for the first time the thresh~
old of "the injured lovers hell" All this |
time, Bathsheba, without looking, was con-
scious of having broken into the dignified
stronghold of Mr.. Boldwood's i48 Women's
very ribbons seem to have eyes to perceive
these thinpS